Not every sweet people call a seventies classic actually launched in the seventies, plenty of the era's favourites, like Spangles or Opal Fruits, were already old news by the time flares came into fashion. These four bars, though, are the real thing: all four launched in this exact decade.
1970: Curly Wurly
Cadbury launched Curly Wurly in 1970, a woven lattice of chewy caramel dipped in a thin coating of milk chocolate. The open lattice shape was a clever piece of engineering as much as marketing, it made the bar look considerably larger than its actual weight, and the thin chocolate coating meant it could be sold cheaply as pocket-money confectionery, which is exactly the market it was aimed at.
1976: a bumper year for chunky bars
Two of the decade's most enduring bars arrived within months of each other in 1976:
- Rowntree's Yorkie — launched as a deliberately thick, chunky bar marketed hard at truck drivers with the slogan "It's not for girls" appearing decades later; the shape itself, thick rectangular chunks rather than a flat bar, was the whole point from day one
- Cadbury's Double Decker — a two-layer bar combining a nougat and dense sultana-studded layer with a crispy cereal and caramel layer, both wrapped in milk chocolate; the two-texture format was unusual enough at launch that it became the bar's main selling point
- Cadbury's Star Bar — also 1976, effectively a reworking of the earlier Aztec bar with roasted peanuts folded into the caramel and nougat, sold with a space-themed advertising campaign
The bar that didn't survive: Aztec
Not every seventies launch made it out of the decade. Aztec, Cadbury's nougat-and-caramel answer to the Mars bar, actually launched in 1967, so it just misses this list on a technicality, but it was very much a 1970s staple before being discontinued in 1978 as Cadbury folded its format into the newer Star Bar instead. It's a reminder that this decade wasn't just about launches, plenty of well-loved bars quietly disappeared from shelves during it too. You'll find a number of the decade's survivors, and its comebacks, in our retro sweets range.
Frequently asked questions
What chocolate bar launched in 1970?
Cadbury's Curly Wurly launched in 1970, a caramel bar woven into a lattice and covered in a thin layer of milk chocolate, designed to look and feel bigger than its actual weight.
Were Double Decker and Yorkie both launched the same year?
Yes. Both Cadbury's Double Decker and Rowntree's Yorkie launched in 1976, arriving within the same year as rival responses to growing demand for bigger, chunkier bars.
What happened to Cadbury's Aztec bar?
Aztec launched in 1967 as Cadbury's answer to the Mars bar, nougat and caramel under milk chocolate, but was discontinued in 1978. Its production line and format were reworked into the Star Bar, which launched in 1976 with peanuts added to the caramel and nougat.